48 Hours In Madrid!

Ole Amigos! Here I am back in Cork, back at work after my mad dash to Spain. I really wish I had more time there as I totally loved Madrid!! Oh Madrid Madrid! Home of bull fights, siesters, tapas, wine and of course David and Victoria Beckham!! Who I would like to say we stayed with but unless Victoria has had some surgery to look like a 65 year old,short round Spanish woman then I am afraid to say we did not. But the 65 year old short round Spanish woman who tried to rip us off for another night was actually quite friendly in a sneaky kind of way!

I happily left the wind and rain in Ireland on Friday only to arrive to sunshine and blue sky's in Madrid! I meet Kerrie at the train station and so our Spanish adventure began. We didn't get up to much really just wondered the streets, shopped, stopped for coffee, walked again, stopped for beers and tapas, shopped again, stopped for wine and tapas, kept exploring then stopped for pella and wine! Ha! As you can imagine it was very relaxing. We generally kept to the slow, no hurry pace of the Spanish. I guess it could be a bit frustrating if your an impatient person as often you wait for quite sometime before getting served or given the bill. But as the Frenchman David says "No need to make race!" So we just took our time and soaked in the atmosphere of Madrid.

We did get to a few tourist spots such as the palace where some thing was going on. There were lots of officials and men in uniform (which we didn't mind at all). Although the guards at the palace gates looked more like boy scouts than palace guards and these horse escorts kept turning up with their own horse escorts so we were a bit confused on what was happening. In the end we decided that food was far more important than possibly seeing the King of Spain so back to the Tapas bar we went!

Oh man the food and wine in Madrid was soooo cheap, we scored a great lunch including 2 beers for 6 euro!! Crazy stuff really, not to mention the huge glass of wine you can get for €1.70, madness! Although if your a vegetarian there are a few bars that might turn you off as they tend to have legs of ham hanging from the ceiling! No not just one or two but it looks like a bloody butcher shop with all these legs hanging about and there you are sitting under this ham drinking wine! Hmmmm the Spaniards are certainly dedicated to their cured meats!

So after our drinking and eating and shopping and wondering we found ourselves leaving a restaurant at midnight only to find the streets full of crazy Spaniards! During the day the crowds were very minimal and hardly any one about, but at night holy cow the place was jumping. Even when we were up at 7am to catch the train to the airport they were still out and about the streets drinking in the ham bars and slowly starting to make their way home, to sleep for the rest of the day I assume. Unfortunately we could not sleep that day as we had to fly back Cork.

Kezz came back with me to Ireland just to take in the capital of culture which is Cork. She has gone back to France now and me back at work. I only have 3 days left at Novartis and then its just all about getting sorted for Kuwait....But I shall leave all that for my next post!

Adios